Discovering Devices in a Physical Network

You can discover and synchronize physical devices such as EX Series switches, QFX Series devices, MX Series routers, in your network that are managed by Network Director.

You can also discover and manage virtual devices in your virtual network from Network Director.

Note:

To discover, EX Series switches, Network Director connects to port 22 (the default port) on the Junos Space Virtual Appliance by using SSH. You can configure port 22 on the Junos Space appliances through Administration > Applications on the Junos Space Platform page. Select Network Application Platform and click Actions > Modify Application Settings. Change the SSH port for device connection to 22.

Device discovery is a three-step process in which you specify the target devices, the discovery options, and the schedule options.

While in Build mode, from the Tasks pane, click Discover Devices from the Device Discovery menu. The Discover Devices page is displayed.

This topic describes:

Specifying Target Devices

You can add devices to Network Director for device discovery by clicking either Import from CSV or Add , or both together. Click Import from CSV to add devices in bulk. You can add a large number of devices to Network Director by using a CSV file that contains information extracted from an LDAP repository. During device discovery, you can associate the devices with logical, location, and custom groups. You can list all devices to be discovered in the CSV file along with their logical, location, and custom groups. This eliminates the need to make an explicit association later. If you do not assign groups to the devices, the devices are added to the Unassigned folder by default. You can also change the assignment later. Associating new devices with groups makes the network simpler to manage and maintain.

To specify the target devices that you want Network Director to discover:

Enter a name for the device discovery job.
The default name is ND Discovery.
To add devices in bulk, click Import from CSV from the Device Targets window.
The Upload CSV File dialog box is displayed.
Click Browse.
The File Upload dialog box is displayed.
Navigate to the target CSV file on your computer, select the file, and click Open.
The CSV File Upload dialog box reappears, this time displaying the name of the selected file.

Note:
The selected CSV file must follow the same file format as that of the sample CSV file.
Click Upload to upload the selected CSV file.
To add individual devices by specifying the IP address credentials, click Add in the Device Targets table.
The Add Device Target dialog box appears.
In the Add Device Target dialog box, perform the following steps:
1. Choose one of the following options to specify target devices:
  - Select the IP option and enter the IP address of the device.
  - Select the IP-Range option and enter a range of IP addresses for the devices.
    
    The maximum number of IP addresses for an IP range target is 1024.
  - Select the IP-Subnet option and enter an IP subnet for the devices.
  - Select the HostName option and enter the hostname of the device.
2. In the Assign To section, specify the following groups to which the newly discovered devices can be assigned:
  - From the Logical Group drop-down menu, select Core, Aggregation, Access, or Layer 3 Fabric to specify the logical grouping of the device.
    
    Select the Layer 3 Fabric option to discover a Layer 3 fabric that is not created using Network Director and OpenClos. You can discover devices in Network Director that belong to the same IP subnet. To discover a Layer 3 Fabric, specify the IP subnet range, as all the devices that belong to the same Layer 3 Fabric resides in the same subnet. Network Director expands the IP subnet range and reaches every single IP address that you have specified in the IP range.
    
    Network Director initially discovers the Layer 3 Fabric based on the IP subnet and range. However, you can manually discover Layer 3 Fabric at a later stage by entering the host name of the Layer 3 Fabric.
  - For the Location Group field, click Select to choose the location group for the device or input the location path for the association. To clear the selection, click Clear.
    
    Use the following format for the location path for the respective associations:
    - site-name#S/building-name#B
    - site-name#S/building-name#B/floor-name#F#floor-level
    - site-name#S/building-name#B/floor-name#F#1 - 1st level
    - site-name#S/building-name#B/floor-name#F#floor-level/closet-name#C
    - site-name#S/building-name#B/floor-name#F#floor-level/aisle-name#A/rack-name#R
    - site-name#S/outdoorarea-name#O
    If the location paths do not point to existing locations in Network Director, new location groups are created before the devices are assigned to them.
  - For the Custom Group field, click Select to choose the custom group for the device or input the custom group path. To clear the selection, click Clear.
    
    Use the following format for the custom group path:
    - customgroup1-name/customgroup2-name
  If the custom group paths do not point to existing custom groups, new groups are created before the devices are assigned to them.
3. Click Add to save the target devices that you specified, or click Add More to add more target devices. When you have added all target devices that you want Network Director to discover, click Add.
The Discover Targets table displays the addresses of the configured target devices.
Following device discovery management options are available:
- To edit a target device, select a row from the Device Targets table and click Edit. Make the required changes and click Add to display the IP addresses in the Device Targets table
- To delete a target device, select a row from the Device Targets table and click Delete.
- To view and download a sample CSV file, click CSV Sample. The Opening Device_Discovery_CSV.csv file dialog box is displayed. You can open the sample CSV file or save the sample CSV file.
Click Next or click Discovery Options from the top wizard workflow to go to the Discovery Options page. Specify the options as described in Specifying Discovery Options.

Specifying Discovery Options

To add the device credentials and specify the probes:

Add the device credentials. To add the credentials, click Add from the Device Credentials table.
The Add Device Credentials dialog box is displayed.

Note:
If the credentials were specified in the CSV file, the Credentials table displays those values. If the credentials were not specified in the CSV file, then enter the values in the Add Device Credentials dialog box.
- Specify the administrator username and password, and confirm the password. The username and password must match the name and password configured on the device. The username is a mandatory field.
- Click Add to save the username and password that you specified or click Add More to add another username and password.
  
  Click Add after you have finished adding all login credentials. The Device Credentials table displays the usernames that you configured.
Specify the probes from the Specify Probes table. Select a probe method to discover the target devices.
- Select Use Ping if SNMP is not configured for the device and clear the Use SNMP check box.
  
  Network Director uses the Juniper Networks Device Management Interface (DMI) to directly connect to and discover devices. DMI is an extension to the NETCONF network management protocol.
- Select Use SNMP if SNMP is configured for the device, and clear the Use Ping check box.
  
  Network Director uses the SNMP GET command to discover target devices.
- Select both the Use Ping and the Use SNMP check boxes, to enable Network Director for faster discovery of the target devices, provided the device is pingable and also SNMP is enabled on the device.
Note:
Network Director uses the Juniper Networks Device Management Interface (DMI) adapter to manage devices that do not run Junos OS. However, if you enable Use SNMP, Network Director detects whether the device is running a DMI-complaint software or not.
Click Add if you have selected the Use SNMP check box.
The Add SNMP Settings dialog box is displayed.

Select either SNMP V1/V2C or SNMP V3. Based on the selection, you need to enter the details as follows:
- If you selected SNMP V1/V2C, specify a community string, which can be public, private, or a predefined string.
  
  Click Add in the Add SNMP Settings dialog box or click Add More to add more strings to the community. If you click Add More, when you are done adding all the strings, click Add to save the SNMP settings for V1/V2C.
- If you selected SNMP V3:
  - Enter a username
  - Select the privacy type (AES 128, DES, or None).
  - Enter the privacy password (if AES 128 or DES). If you specify none for the privacy type, the privacy function is disabled.
  - Select the authentication type (MD5, SHA, or none).
  - Enter the authentication password (if MD5 or SHA). If you specify none for the authentication type, the authentication function is disabled.
  - Click Add to save the SNMP settings and close the dialog box, or click Add More to add additional configurations. If you clicked Add More, click Add to save the settings and close the dialog box.
  The Specify Probes table displays the configured SNMP settings.
Click Next or click Schedule Options from the top wizard workflow to go to the Discovery Schedule Options page. Specify the options as described in the Specifying Schedule Options.

Specifying Schedule Options

To specify the scheduler details:

Click Run Now if you want to discover the devices immediately or Click Schedule at a later time if you want to schedule the device discovery for a future time.
If you select Schedule at a later time, specify the date and time to run the device discovery.
Click Next or click Review from the top wizard workflow to view the configuration. See Reviewing Device Discovery Options.

Reviewing Device Discovery Options

From this page, you can save or make changes to the device discovery options.

To make changes to the device discovery options, click the Edit button associated with the configuration you want to change.

Alternatively, you can click the appropriate buttons in the profile workflow at the top of the page that corresponds to the configuration you want to change.

When you are finished with your modifications, click Review to return to this page.
Click Finish when you are done with the configurations.

A message window opens, displaying the status of the device discovery job name and job ID. Click OK.

The Device Discovery Jobs page is displayed with the list of jobs scheduled.

Viewing the Discovery Status

After you have configured the device discovery options, you can view the device discovery status from the View Discovery Status option from the Device Discovery menu.

The Device Discovery Jobs page displays all the scheduled device discovery jobs. You can view the following details from the Device Discovery Jobs page as described in Table 1.

Table 1: Viewing Device Discover Jobs
Field	Description
Job ID	An identifier assigned to the job.
Job Name	The name of the job (user-created).
Percent	Percentage of the job that is complete.
Status	Job status. The possible states are: CANCELLED—The job was cancelled by a user. FAILURE—The job failed. This state is displayed if any of the devices in the job failed. But some of the devices might have completed successfully. View the job details for the status of each device. INPROGRESS—The job is running. SCHEDULED—The job is scheduled but has not run yet. SUCCESS—The job completed successfully. This state is displayed if all of the devices in the job completed successfully.
Summary	Summary of the job scheduled and executed with status.
Scheduled Start Time	The UTC time on the client computer when the job is scheduled to start.
Actual Start Time	The actual time when the job started.
End Time	The time when the job was completed.
User	The login ID of the user that initiated the job.
Recurrence	The recurrent time when the job will be restarted.

To view the details of a job, select the check box against Job ID or Job Name and click Show Details. The Discover Network Elements window displays details of the device discovery job.

Note:

During device discovery, if Network Director is unable to read the device configurations, then the status displays Failed state. For such failures, you can check the reason for failure from the Manage Jobs page in System mode. You must make the required changes to the device configuration using the CLI so that Network Director can read the configuration. Network Director automatically resynchronizes once you enable a device discovery job. If Network Director cannot discover the device even after resynchronization, then you must rediscover the device after making the appropriate changes in the device configurations by using the CLI.

ON THIS PAGE

Discovering Devices in a Physical Network

Specifying Target Devices

Specifying Discovery Options

Specifying Schedule Options

Reviewing Device Discovery Options

Viewing the Discovery Status

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